Tag: change

Life has been a tad bit crazy since deciding to move to Virginia and it hasn’t settled down since we arrived. There has been no settling for us. To our credit, we wake up every day and tackle life. Good, bad or indifferent, we are still in the game. Yay us! Sort of.

My health has taken quite a hit since moving here. I was concerned about it before moving but did my best to keep my worries private. Sad to report, that my concerns were well founded. My health is worse in Virginia. I am dealing with all the old problems and a bunch of new health challenges. I am researching and working to get myself together again. It’s just taking some time. But the life that I have envisioned for years is still just far enough of reach that I can’t get there. It sucks. Back to the drawing board.

There are days where I have a lot of down time and up till now, I have mostly been sleeping, recovering and willing my body to get it together. I’m not sure how well that is working but where the mind leads, the body will follow. So I’ve been told.

During the times of quiet, my mind keeps thinking about blogging and writing. It’s been a struggle to get it going. For the first few months, we had no internet. It’s only been within the past 30 days that we have internet in our home. Then there is time. I’m the only driver in our home so currently, I drive 2 people to 3 jobs. It was 2 people to 4 jobs for first few months. I didn’t have much time to sit still while juggling 2 people with 4 schedules. But we’ve made it work.

One of my biggest excuses has been this insane idea of starting a brand spanking new blog. I’ve been searching and trying out new names. I’ve been resisting coming to this blog to build on what I have already started. A mini identity crisis? Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes I don’t want to tie some of my thoughts with my photography but it is so much easier to manage if it is all in one place. Does this blog allow me to do that? I don’t know but why start over? Plus, I can’t think of a new blog name that I like.

Wow…missed yesterday’s blog post. Anxiety is stirring in the pit of my stomach. Just to be clear, anxiety is not nerves or worry. It is an entirely different beast all together. When I am nervous about something, I can push through the nerves and do what I need or want to do. When I am experiencing anxiety or having panic attacks about something, the more I push, the worse it fights back. Currently, there are so many changes occurring right now in my life, that my anxiety is already starting to rumble, deep and low in my stomach. I am doing everything I can to ward off an anxiety filled explosion the size of a super volcano.

I am already crying off and on about leaving Arizona. There is so much that I am going to miss. There are so many things that I didn’t get the time or money to go do and see. There are people who I never got to meet in person. I am trying not to panic over all that I will miss and all that I never got to do while living here. I am making my best effort to keep my focus on all the new adventures that are waiting ahead for me. Besides, I can always come back. I know the way.

Yesterday, I was thinking about moving and leaving my home. It occurred to me, all change is hard, isn’t it? Even if we are happy about the changes or excited for new frontiers, change is difficult, challenging and often times, overwhelming. Just ask any mother.

Many women have decide to have a baby. You work at it until finally you get pregnant. Everything changes. Your body, your emotions, your thoughts, your plans for your future, it all changes and you are thrilled! At the first twang of birth pains, there is a moment and I think for most it is only a moment, but in one painful, reality filled moment, you say…O.M.G.! The weight of it all hits you and somewhere in between breathing exercises and pain, your mind fully grasps the imminent arrival of a tiny, helpless human being that you created and are now fully responsible for. O.M.G…change.

Change that you desired. Change that you purposely decided upon. Change that you know is the right step for you in your life. Change that brings more change.

Anyone who tells you that change, good or bad is easy-peasy, is faking it or lying to you. Period. Be real. Be honest. Change is hard.

It is 2:58 a.m.
I have been up since 6:30 a.m. Monday morning.
I am still awake. I am tired but can not seem to climb into bed and go to sleep. I wonder why?

I have always had strange sleeping habits. My parents would often tell stories about me, at 2 years old, waking up in the middle of the night and going outside to play. I had the terrible habit of getting sleepy then falling asleep under the cars in our neighborhood. My mother told me that she had locks on the top of the door. I would stack chairs and such to climb up to the top of the door and unlock it. Fleeing to the great outdoors in the middle of the night.

My parents warned all the neighbors about me because one crisp morning, a neighbor almost ran me over if it was not for a tiny piece of my Dad’s stark white t-shirt that caught his eye. I wore my Dad’s t-shirts to bed. He brought me home and woke my parents with his knocking. The neighbor found me, sound asleep, near the front tire, oblivious to the danger around me.

After my parents managed to fasten a lock that I could not open, my mother told me that I would wander the house at night. She told me that because I was in my Dad’s white t-shirts that she would often see me flutter through the house. More than once she thought I was a ghost. Ghost girl in the white Fruit of the Looms. She said I was one of those creepy kids who stared at you till you woke up. I was always scaring the crap out of her.

My father worked over nights. He once told me that my mother would spend all day cleaning the house and I would terrorize it in the middle of the night. He would come home at 6 or 7 a.m. to find the house turned upside down by the little ghost girl. His favorite recollection was the morning he came home to find that I had discovered the 8 mm home movies and strung them around the living room like party streamers. He often cleaned up the house before my mother ever woke up so she would not be upset.

They bravely fought the midnight battle with me until the morning they woke up and I was not home. They searched all the normal places I would be sleeping. I was no where insight. A neighborhood search ensued till someone found me and another little boy. I have no idea where I found him. We were walking in our diapers and me in my white t-shirt along the side of major road. My mother asked me where I was going. I replied, “Dairy Queen.” It was at this point they started locking me in my bedroom at night.

It is safe to say that I have always loved the night. I work best in the early morning. When I was working the newspaper route, I loved being outside during the night. I was thrilled to see the nocturnal animals roaming about town. I always gazed at the stars. I soak in the coolness of the morning. The silence of the city has always been music to my ears. I always hear the moon call my name. Being awake while everyone else is sleeping is the best time to be playing in the night.

I am a long way from 2 years old but I still find the best time to go to bed is just after sunrise and a delicious breakfast. The moon and stars still catch my dreams. The magic night still calls to me.

I often feel like I am locked in a room. I despise the feeling of being forced to do something I don’t want to do or being confined. I will rail against being “trapped”. I have never reacted positively to locked doors. To people who tell me I can’t. To places I can’t go. Makes me wonder, how much do we really change as we age?

Two weeks into this new blogging adventure. I am beginning to establish a habit of writing every day which is something that I have not done in an extremely long time. Probably close to a decade since I abandoned any and all writing. I think my writer’s brain may be leaping, no sputtering, back into action kind of like an old superhero who shows up to save the day but just can’t quite leap over tall buildings like she could in the old days. None the less, I think about writing every day now due to the blog and that is a tiny leap to save my day.

I think a lot about the direction I would like to take Bent Blossom. I think the needle on my compass is twirling in circles as if captured in a magnetic force field causing it to spin wildly in no particular direction. In July, there was a major crisis in my life concerning my son which upended our lives. It was one of those events where instantly you knew things were never going to be the same again. My life is not the same and it will never be heading in that direction again. Foolishly, hopefully, I thought it would have settled into something by now but the dog days of summer have passed and autumn should be here any day now and still nothing but uncertainty greets every sunrise. Old things are passing away. I wait impatiently for new things to sprout. So, I don’t know where the blog is going because the compass has yet to cease spinning. Right now, I have blog and I write every day. That’s all I know.

Still no word from my job interview on Monday. Some friends are saying that if they had interviews all week they may wait till Friday to make a decision. I completely understand. I also am acutely aware the rent is due in 11 days. I need money today not in 3-4 weeks from maybe Friday. So, I’ve agreed to an interview tomorrow for some seasonal warehouse work. It’s one of those if you show up then you are hired. I’m praying I can do it. I’ve got two bad knees, Fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, chronic pain and who knows what else is wrong with me. Twelve hours of warehouse work is not ideal but neither is being homeless so I feel like it is a pick your poison situation. The warehouse work is temporary, just till the end of the year. Praying I can muster enough for that length of time and get us caught up a little financially. We shall see.

Ah, yes, the photo. This is a shot of a night-blooming Cereus or Queen of the Night as we call it here in the desert. I absolutely adore these flowers. It is always a treat to see them bloom on the cacti but you have to be outside at night to witness them spread their flower wings and decorate the night desert. I used the headlights from my car to light up this bloom and grabbed some great shots.

With that, I am drawing today to a close. I have many errands to run tomorrow. I probably should sleep.
Be brave.
Jamie Christine

Yesterday, I alluded to the fact that I did not want to show up and do nothing but complain about my life and my anxiety. That is not me. That is not who I want to be in this life. I understand that life can be, at times, formidable which makes it extremely easy to take a ride on the Complain Train. There are times when life moves in and all around us with such pressure that before we know it, we are coasting in a first class seat on our way to an all out b!t#h fest. After yesterday’s post, I could feel myself settling down in that first class seat. I decided that today, I was getting off the Complain Train and canceling my reservations at the festival.

When I woke up, I was still pacing and agitated. I’m having an issue with my car right now, however, I had a few errands today which meant I had to drive the car. I woke up worried and panicking about it. I could not change what I had to do. I could not put it off for another day. I took deep breaths, broke my day up into small sections and only focused one section at a time. Completed my first errand. Had lunch. More deep breaths then headed out for my second errand.

My second errand was that I had to drive my son to a job interview. On the way out the door, I grabbed my crochet bag to give me something to do while I waited for him. We arrived safely. My son went into the building for his interview. I parked in a shady spot, it is the Valley of the Sun after all and settled down with my crochet.

I am not a super crocheter but I can make a few things and my skills are improving all the time. I rolled the windows down and continued working on my chevron scarf. Yes, I sat in my car, in 90 degree weather, crocheting a scarf, in the Valley of the Sun.

It was so nice. I probably should come up with a better descriptive word here but nice suited my situation perfectly. It was calm, quite and blowing through the front windows of my Kia Soul was the gentlest of winds. Winds of change indeed because they blew right through me. I even said out loud, to myself, maybe I just needed to be outside. To clear my head so I could think straight. To breathe deeply of the calm that being outside brings. It was peaceful as I let the wind just blow all that junk out of my mind and spirit. While I sat there, crocheting, I thought about the past few months, the job searching, the stress and the worry. Focusing on one step at a time, breathing and being outside renewed a peace in me. By the time my son was done, I had completely a huge section on my scarf and I could think clearly again. I just let the wind blow it all away.

When I arrived at home there was a surprise waiting for me in e-mail box but that is for tomorrow.

I must, first and foremost, apologize for the delay in getting this blog up and running daily. It was not my intention to get lost on the road I was on. However, as I was preparing to launch Bent Blossom, I had several experiences that shifted my thoughts on the blog. I found myself careening off in a brand new direction. The odd thing about it; the new direction was more in line with my heart. I consider it a little nudge in the right direction from the universe.

So, I am working on getting a plan together about how I am going to proceed with Bent Blossom. I hope to get my petals all together very soon. 🙂